Monterey + High Sierra dual boot

[MacRep]

Hi there. I have a 2014 MacMini and I would like to install both systems in different disk partitions (of the same disk) to be accesible whenever I need.

I've achieved to install a fresh copy of both systems (firstly HS and then Monterey), but the partition of Monterey dissapeared in High Sierra. This partition is only visible via Disk Utility, but I cannot boot to Monterey (Both into system preferences/startup disk, neither on Startup Manager pressing "Alt").

Also I have the error message "Incompatible Disk. This disk uses features that are not supported on this version of MacOS" when I start High Sierra.

Is possible to have installed Monterey and High Sierra and use both systems?

Thanks!

 

[MultiFinder17]

Yup! I have that set up on one of my Macs - install Monterey first, then partition and install High Sierra. HS doesn’t know about how some parts of Monterey are installed (Monterey uses several different APFS containers for the system and user data for example) and can screw things up as you’ve found. Install Monterey, let it set up the disk how it wants, then create a partition for HS.

As for the incompatible disk error, that’ll be there every time you boot HS as Monterey does indeed use several features of APFS that simply didn’t exist when HS was out, so it has no idea what to do with them. Don’t worry about it, it’s normal

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, if those messages bug you, do this on 2 separate drives. Put the OS you use the most on the internal and the other on an external. If your usage ever flips, you can always reverse where each is installed too.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

I have "a better way" for you.

Install your second OS on a second, external USB3 SSD.

Which is the OS you will use the most?
THAT is the one to install on the internal SSD.

Then, get a small, cheap external USB3 SSD for the other OS.
A 256gb SATA SSD (in a USB3 enclosure) will work fine, and be cheap as well (put it together yourself). Even 128gb may be "enough" --- you can get these for $20 or less.

Install your 2nd OS and the apps you need (along with an account) on that one.
Then, just "switch boot" when needed.

 

[jackoverfull]

That is not a better way, especially if you are slowly migrating to the better OS.

I planed to install whatever most recent OS my mac will run in a while while also keeping Mojave as my main OS until I was ready to do a full switch, seems it won’t be as easy as it used to be after all.

 

[DeltaMac]

I have a single drive with separate partitions for all Mac system full installs from Leopard to Monterey. 13 full system installs (a "tredecuple" boot, I think it might be called... ) If I boot on that drive from High Sierra, I always get the "Incompatible Disk" message. It's just the Monterey bootable partition. You will find that it will always appear when first booting to High Sierra, and another bootable system has Monterey (or higher). Does not make a difference if the two systems are on the same disk, or separated between internal to external disks. If you boot to High Sierra, and a Monterey partition mounts, you will get the message. You can still see your files on a Monterey system, but you might not be able to make any changes on the Monterey drive, unless you are actually booted to that Monterey system.
Interesting note: If you boot from El Capitan with that multi-boot drive, any systems from High Sierra up are not visible at all (won't see APFS partitions. Also, I often can't choose a higher system to restart through the Startup Disk pref pane. I almost always have to simple restart and choose the desired system from the Option/Alt boot picker screen.

 

[jackoverfull]

Before High Sierra there are no APFS drivers, so it’s no surprise APFS partitions won’t show up. Mounting drives in read only mode is probably done when a newer version of APFS is used than the one supported by the system.

 

[DeltaMac]

Before High Sierra there are no APFS drivers, so it’s no surprise APFS partitions won’t show up. Mounting drives in read only mode is probably done when a newer version of APFS is used than the one supported by the system.

Not completely accurate. Sierra (10.12.6) will actually mount (some, but not the read-only system volumes) APFS volumes, although Big Sur and up will only read the data volume in Sierra. Sierra appears to allow erasing an APFS volume, Disk Utility in Sierra shows an APFS volume for what it is, the format is listed, but greyed out in Disk Utility. You can erase an APFS volume, but only with some variation of Mac OS extended, or MS-DOS/ExFAT. I don't know if Sierra terminal has other APFS options, but I would think very limited, if at all.
So, existing APFS volumes are somewhat, kinda available in Sierra

 

[Yebubbleman]

Hi there. I have a 2014 MacMini and I would like to install both systems in different disk partitions (of the same disk) to be accesible whenever I need.

I've achieved to install a fresh copy of both systems (firstly HS and then Monterey), but the partition of Monterey dissapeared in High Sierra. This partition is only visible via Disk Utility, but I cannot boot to Monterey (Both into system preferences/startup disk, neither on Startup Manager pressing "Alt").

Also I have the error message "Incompatible Disk. This disk uses features that are not supported on this version of MacOS" when I start High Sierra.

Is possible to have installed Monterey and High Sierra and use both systems?

Thanks!

Is the drive a hard drive or a solid state drive? If it's a hard drive, you're going to want to use Mojave instead of High Sierra. (You may want to just do that anyway; Mojave was a WAY more stable OS.)

 

[jackoverfull]

You may want to just do that anyway; Mojave was a WAY more stable OS.

Can’t agree here from my experience: while Mojave is not terrible I had several crashes to the login window that I never had with high Sierra.

Is the drive a hard drive or a solid state drive? If it's a hard drive, you're going to want to use Mojave instead of High Sierra.

Why?

 

[Yebubbleman]

Can’t agree here from my experience: while Mojave is not terrible I had several crashes to the login window that I never had with high Sierra.

Mind you, my only experience with Mojave has been with clean installations. I haven't done an in-place upgrade on a Mac that I didn't subsequently do a full clean wipe on in several years. Your mileage may vary. But a clean-installation of Mojave ought to be smooth. I did the same with High Sierra (albeit when it was still new) and had macOS experience issues the likes of which I had never seen. Caused me to stay on El Capitan until Mojave came out.

Why?

A Mac with an SSD boot drive will automatically be using APFS on High Sierra. However a Mac with either an HDD boot drive or a Fusion Drive will still use macOS Extended (Journaled) (otherwise known as HFS+). On Mojave, Apple standardized it so that APFS is the supported partition type regardless of what kind of boot drive your Mac is using.

Monterey, like Mojave is APFS-only. But if you are trying to dual-boot High Sierra on an HDD or Fusion Drive (in which you're rocking HFS+) along with Monterey (in which you are rocking APFS), you might have issues. Not saying you WILL have issues, but it won't be as smooth as simply dual-booting two APFS OSes in one single APFS container.

 

[jackoverfull]

Mind you, my only experience with Mojave has been with clean installations. I haven't done an in-place upgrade on a Mac that I didn't subsequently do a full clean wipe on in several years. Your mileage may vary. But a clean-installation of Mojave ought to be smooth. I did the same with High Sierra (albeit when it was still new)

I always use clean installations. Mojave has been my main OS since November and I’ve used High Sierra a lot on my secondary mac from when it was new until I switched it to Catalina a few months ago.

and had macOS experience issues the likes of which I had never seen.

Such as?

Caused me to stay on El Capitan until Mojave came out.

Given that El Capitan was almost as buggy as Yosemite…

A Mac with an SSD boot drive will automatically be using APFS on High Sierra. However a Mac with either an HDD boot drive or a Fusion Drive will still use macOS Extended (Journaled) (otherwise known as HFS+). On Mojave, Apple standardized it so that APFS is the supported partition type regardless of what kind of boot drive your Mac is using.

This doesn’t sound as much of a selling point, given that there is pretty much no advantage in using APFS on an HD. The only reason they are doing this is because macOS no longer boots on HFS+.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I always use clean installations. Mojave has been my main OS since November and I’ve used High Sierra a lot on my secondary mac from when it was new until I switched it to Catalina a few months ago.

I really don't know what to tell you; I've used El Capitan on several Macs from 2015 all the way through 2020 and it was rock solid stable. Probably the most stable OS I'd used (at the time) since Snow Leopard.

Such as?

First off, let's not forget that Apple had a blank root password from the original beta release all the way through the .1 update and had to respond to that publically with an extremely rare "yeah, we messed up and there's no upshot; we'll try to do better next time" statement. But, for me personally, I did a clean install and had all sorts of issues ranging from Mail messing up how incoming messages were displayed to apps just straight-up not opening and disappearing from the Applications folder. And this is from a 100% clean install and not even after fully setting it up yet! Like, my data wasn't even fully copied back to it yet (I always manually restore my data because that's how much of a clean-freak I am about my macOS installations)! It was the absolute worst macOS experience I had ever had in all my 25 years of using a Mac. 10.13.6 DID stabilize, but I never found myself preferring it over Mojave.

Given that El Capitan was almost as buggy as Yosemite…

Yosemite was definitely worse.

This doesn’t sound as much of a selling point, given that there is pretty much no advantage in using APFS on an HD. The only reason they are doing this is because macOS no longer boots on HFS+.

It's not meant to be a selling point. It's facts. Mojave and newer won't boot to HFS+ regardless of boot drive type. So, unless the OP is running on an SSD where High Sierra is running on an APFS partition, they'll HAVE to have an HFS+ partition and an APFS partition and holy hell is that messy! There's no benefit to doing it that way unless you REALLY HATE Mojave. But again, the vast majority of Macs I worked with had zero issues with Mojave. It was a very stable OS. Certainly better than both OSes on either side of it.

 

[jackoverfull]

But, for me personally, I did a clean install and had all sorts of issues ranging from Mail messing up how incoming messages were displayed to

Funny, mail messing up messages is a known bug on El Capitan.

apps just straight-up not opening and disappearing from the Applications folde

Never seen anything like that.

Yosemite was definitely worse.

That’s what “almost” means.

It's not meant to be a selling point. It's facts. Mojave and newer won't boot to HFS+ regardless of boot drive type. So, unless the OP is running on an SSD where High Sierra is running on an APFS partition, they'll HAVE to have an HFS+ partition and an APFS partition and holy hell is that messy! There's no benefit to doing it that way unless you REALLY HATE Mojave.

HFS+ messy on HDs? Since when? A format that has been used stably with HDs for 25 years or so?
And sure there is an advantage: compatibility.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Funny, mail messing up messages is a known bug on El Capitan.

Mail was rock solid for me in El Capitan. Never had any issues.

Never seen anything like that.

It was pretty horrible. I was definitely turned off. Certainly, by 10.13.6 it became stable, but by then, I had no reason to pick that over Mojave, which was stable from 10.14.0 to the last security updated version of 10.14.6 that I used and on all 30 or or so Macs that I managed, maintained or (in the case of a couple of those) owned.

That’s what “almost” means.

"almost" and "definitely" are not the same thing on my planet. Yosemite was a mess. Better than the nonsense that was Mavericks, but still sub-optimal. Having used every Mac OS X release up until Snow Leopard; I skipped Lion, and then skipped Mavericks and Yosemite and my experience on Mountain Lion and El Capitan was rock solid. Though, certainly, I hear that Mountain Lion made audio folks' lives hell, so clearly your mileage may vary.

HFS+ messy on HDs? Since when? A format that has been used stably with HDs for 25 years or so?
And sure there is an advantage: compatibility.

No, you misread me. HFS+ isn't messy on HDDs. Mixing HFS+ (which you'd HAVE to use on an HDD if you're running High Sierra) and APFS on the same drive is what's messy. If you're on an SSD, then you can dual-boot both High Sierra and Monterey and probably not have any issue. Though there are very few High Sierra capable Macs that will run Monterey and not have the latter run like crap on them. Monterey is not the most resource efficient macOS release that Apple has ever put out. Memory leaks galore. Makes the fans on older Intel Macs ramp up in ways that it never needed to do on Big Sur (running on those same Macs).

 

[jackoverfull]

Mail was rock solid for me in El Capitan. Never had any issues.

Good for you. Plenty of people had messages just disappearing into nothingness or mail filling up the disk by downloading the same stuff over and over.

"almost" and "definitely" are not the same thing on my planet. Yosemite was a mess. Better than the nonsense that was Mavericks, but still sub-optimal. Having used every Mac OS X release up until Snow Leopard; I skipped Lion, and then skipped Mavericks and Yosemite and my experience on Mountain Lion and El Capitan was rock solid. Though, certainly, I hear that Mountain Lion made audio folks' lives hell, so clearly your mileage may vary

Perhaps reading what I wrote instead of quibbling about words that said the exact thing you went up saying?

I skipped from Snow Leopard to Sierra, but had the unfortunate experience of maintaining other people’s computers. Still have an El Capitan one in the family actually.

No, you misread me. HFS+ isn't messy on HDDs. Mixing HFS+ (which you'd HAVE to use on an HDD if you're running High Sierra) and APFS on the same drive is what's messy.

So…what did I say? That’s better to have all partitions HFS+? Still, I wouldn’t say it’s a mess…I have a couple of macs with High Sierra or Catalina and snow leopard and there is no issue. Of course snow leopard won’t mount the APFS partition.

 

[JohnArtist]

So, will this work on a newer iMac? I have a 2020 iMac that runs Big Sur. I kept my old 2013 that runs High Sierra. If I get an external SSD, I don't think Big Sur will allow me to install on the external SSD since it won't install that "older" OS based on the iMac model. Or is this incorrect?

I have an old piece of software that is was too expensive to upgrade but it won't run in BigSur. I kept my old 2013 iMac just to run it (a 3D modeling app). I might like this so that I can get rid of the old iMac and actually have faster performance in the new iMac.

Any thoughts? (TIA)

 

[DeltaMac]

Which app (3D modeling app) do you have on the 2013 iMac?

 

[MacRep]

Hey! Thanks to everyone to respond this thread.

I've reinstalled Monterey, and then I can choose it on boot (Now the OSX symbol is available). But I continue without alternative to select it on High Sierra system preferences, due the things about incompatibility of the AFPS system you've mentioned here.

Which app (3D modeling app) do you have on the 2013 iMac?

About 3D software, I've used Blender and is rock solid in High Sierra.

 

[simacc]

Hi so for anyone interested I'm messing with this at the moment, triple boot Monterey, Windows 10, and Sierra on a 2013 Mac Pro.

Wipe computer first...btw good time to give SSD a refresh, so use Parted Magic secure erase...get your Sierra USB key ready...

Format internal SSD HFS+. Install Sierra to internal drive, set it all up, (auto login, boot after power loss, all the uptime stuff)....then, boot to recovery, and clone the internal drive to an external (I used a cheap SATA SSD in a case). Sierra done.

Wipe computer again. Install Monterey first, set up, then Bootcamp and Windows 10 on internal drive. Get that all working nicely.

Now you've two options, make another partition on the internal SSD and just clone over the Sierra, or just leave it on the external...I'm leaving it external for now...

If you need to boot from one to the other headless/remotely, like me. (i.e no option key). You can boot from Monterey or Windows 10 to anywhere, but from Sierra you have to boot to Windows first and then you can get back to Monterey from there.

Working great anyway.